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Tuesday, July 17, 2012

You Were Always There, Chapter 9

Chapter 9

“Ike, have you seen Teresa?”
Lou asked. She’d slept half the morning
away, after being up all night helping deliver Mrs. Heath’s baby. Now, feeling bleary eyed and fuzzy headed
from the odd sleep schedule, she just wanted to know what she’d missed.

Ike shrugged and looked over to
Jeremiah, who was playing a game of checkers with his friend, Liam O’Callahan.

Without looking up from the
gameboard, Jeremiah said, “She went over to the Metcalfes’. Miss Emily’s teaching her how to bake
zucchini bread, or some such, in the dutch oven.”

Lou nodded.

*I’ll go check on her,* Ike
said, setting aside the harness he’d been repairing. *You get something to eat,* he added with a
pointed look at Lou and then toward their camp kitchen.

Lou snapped out a jaunty
salute. “Yes, Sir, husband, Sir!”

Ike shook his head, laughing at
her antics as he walked away. Crossing
the circle of wagons to the Metcalfe camp, he could already hear Teresa’s
voice. She was standing next to Emily,
chattering away, while Emily was removing the freshly baked zucchini bread from
the dutch oven and setting it on a camp table to cool.

Ike knocked gently on the end
of the wagon’s side to announce his presence.

“Ike!” Teresa called happily. “Come over and see! We made zucchini bread. I helped.”

Ike walked over and obligingly
inspected the still warm baked goods. He
nodded approvingly.

*Good job.* Turning to Emily, who’d moved back over by
the fire at his approach, he added, *Thank you for helping her.*

“I’m teaching her how to sign,
so she can talk to you, in exchange for the cooking lessons,” Teresa said,
proudly. “She says I’m a good teacher.”

Ike nodded, keeping his eyes on
Emily, who’d now turned her back on him, blushing bright red. *Resi, your sister’s up now. Why don’t you go tell her about your bread? I’m sure she’d like to hear all about it.*

He waited until Teresa was well
out of earshot, before reaching out to touch Emily’s shoulder. When she pulled roughly away to move toward
the off side of her wagon, away from the sight of everyone else in camp, Ike
knew there was definitely a problem. He
followed her. Finally, she turned to
face him.

“*What do you want?*” she
asked, almost angrily, signing carefully along with her words.

*I’m sorry,* he signed. *I never meant to lead you on. I thought we were friends. That’s all.*

“*Friends? What kinds of friends are you used to
having?*” She started to rail at him with both her hands and her voice. Then she growled in frustration when she
couldn’t sign fast enough to keep up with her complaints and threw her hands in
the air. “Friends don’t spend hours
taking long walks together, talking about anything and nothing! Friends don’t help you when your dad gets
drunk or in trouble playing cards!
Friends don’t lie to you about who they are!”

*The truth wasn’t mine to
share,* Ike began. *As for the rest,
that’s precisely what friends do.
They’re always there for each other, to help out. That’s one thing Emma, Rachel and Teaspoon
taught us.*

“Do you love her?” Emily asked
after a long moment. “She said something
about it you getting married so you could get Jeremiah and Teresa out of an
orphanage.”

There was still a note of hope
in her voice. Ike sighed, knowing he was
going to have to quash it.

*I love her more than life
itself,* he said. *I just have to
convince her she can love me. I’m
sorry,* he added. *I never meant to hurt
you. But I’m married, and happy to be
so.*

Unable to stand the pain
twisting her features, he tried to soften the blow.

*If I weren’t already in love
with Lou. If Kid were still alive, even
if Jimmy hadn’t been killed, and I knew I had no chance with her, it might be
different. Under normal circumstances
I’m the last man Lou would have turned to.
And you’re a lovely, sweet girl, Emily.
It would be easy to fall in love with you. But, I’m already spoken for.*

At that, she burst into
tears. Feeling bad, Ike stepped toward
her, reaching out to pull her into his embrace, resting her head against his
shoulder. He sighed as he patted her
back to comfort her. Why did life always
have to be so difficult? There were
times after Annie left that he would have killed to have a girl like Emily
interested in him. Now? Now, he was just sorry for the pain he’d
caused.

“Why? Why couldn’t you have met me first?” she
whispered through her tears.

**********

Nearing the Metcalfe camp, Lou
listened to Teresa’s happy description of her morning with only half an
ear. She carefully inspected the bread
and smiled her approval.

The sudden sound of harshly
flung words in a half whisper brought her up short. Turning to Teresa, she said, “I think you’d
better head back over to our camp.”

Teresa looked from Lou to the
wagon from which the sounds were coming.
With a nod, she turned and, once again, raced away. Lou stepped toward the side of the wagon and
peeked her head around, just in time to see Ike drawing Emily into his arms,
resting his cheek against her head.

Lou pulled back and quickly
walked away, not wanting to interrupt the tender moment. She was glad Ike was getting closer to
Emily. He deserved to have someone who
loved him for him, she told herself. She
had no reason for this sudden sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

**********

Lou sighed with exhaustion as
she urged the oxen out onto the trail the next morning. She still hadn’t had time to recover from staying
up all night helping Mrs. Heath deliver her baby. But, needs must when the devil drives. In this case, the devil being the rapidly
advancing summer. The train desperately
needed to make its way across the Rockies before winter hit. Nobody wanted a repeat of the legendary
Donner Party.

Today, they would cross the
Sweetwater River. Again. This would be their ninth fording of the
river which twisted and turned its way through this part of Wyoming Territory. The river’s cold waters would be a welcome
change from the sweltering summer heat, Lou thought with a grimace. And, this crossing, at Burnt Ranch*, was
their last before they crossed the Continental Divide and officially entered
Oregon Territory.

“Wagons Halt,” the order came
filtering down the line and Lou kept a cautious eye on the Nolans’ wagon in
front of her. When it began to slow, she
called out to her own team, “Whoa, there, whoa I say!”

Even as the prairie schooner
slid to a slow, lumbering halt, the wagon master came trotting up on his
horse. “We’ll be stopping here for
lunch. Burnt Ranch is just around that
bend. After lunch, we’ll line up to ford
the Sweetwater.”

“Yes, sir,” Lou nodded. “We’ll be ready.”

Although the McSwains’ job
during river crossings was officially to make sure the other families were able
to safely ford the river, by now they were rarely needed. In the last few months, the pioneers had gone
from horribly green tenderfeet to well seasoned westerners. They could do their own hunting, even the
women and older children. Most had, by
now, jettisoned all the excess baggage they’d insisted on dragging along at the
beginning of the trip. And they could
cross a raging river in their sleep without losing a single bag of beans. She and Ike really weren’t needed anymore.

Moving to the back of their
wagon, Lou pulled out the camp bread, cold beans and dried bacon that would
make up their lunch.

“What’s for lunch, Lou?”
Jeremiah asked as he came bounding up.

“Well, you have two choices,” she
smiled at him. “Cold beans and bacon or
bacon and cold beans.”

Jeremiah laughed, accepting the
plate from her and sitting down to eat.
Lou looked around when Teresa didn’t immediately show up. While eating the same foods day in and day
out could be…. boring, to say the least, they were all always hungry and eager
for the next meal. Spotting Resi’s
braids disappearing around the back of the Heath wagon, two places ahead, Lou
walked over to see what was going on.

Teresa was seated on a camp
stool, the Heaths’ baby boy cradled in her arms, while Mrs. Heath bustled
around the wagon getting together their lunch.

“Everything alright?” Lou
asked.

“No,” Mrs. Heath snapped
shortly.

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Only if you can figure out a
way to either stop time or get us over the mountains faster,” the harried new
mother muttered. “Here!”

She practically threw the plate
of beans, bacon and bread at her husband, who shrugged apologetically at Lou
before digging in.

“What’s the matter?”

Mrs. Heath sighed, trying to
regain her composure, her shoulders slumping in dejection. “Oh, I didn’t get any sleep last night. The baby kept me up, demanding to eat every
20 minutes or so. I’m just sooo
tired. I’d give my best Sunday dress for
a full night’s sleep!”

“Why don’t you take a nap over
the lunch hour?” Lou suggested. “Resi and I can watch the baby for you. And you can get more rest while waiting for
everyone else to cross the river this afternoon.”

“Would you? Oh, thank you!” Mrs. Heath said, already climbing into her
wagon. Turning around, she handed out a
pile of clothes to Lou. “Here’re some
nappies, in case you need to change him or he spits up. If he gets hungry--“

“And that’s God’s work,” he
smiled at her. “Believe it or not, He
can use anyone he chooses. And rarely
does he choose the perfect person. In
fact, I believe he only did that once in all of history.”

Lou laughed with the kindly man
who’d changed her mind about preachers in general.

“Seriously, though, I can’t
thank you enough. She wouldn’t listen to
me. I offered to watch over little Joey,
but..”

He let the sentiment trail off
and Lou nodded. Although she was just
now beginning to show in her own pregnancy, already she could understand the
new mother’s intense possessiveness of her son.

**********

“Alright, Ladies and Gents, you
know how this is done. One wagon in the
water at a time. Take it nice and steady
all the way across. DO NOT, under any
circumstances, allow your animals to slow down until you are out of the water
on the other side. Once out of the
water, get clear of the exit as quickly as possible. McSwain will show you where to set up
camp. The next wagon doesn’t enter the
water until his missus says its time.
Any questions?”

No one had any. By now, the instructions were old hat to the
weary travelers. All were ready to
simply get the crossing over and call it a night.

Soon the first wagon, the
Graysons’, was entering the water. Lou
stood knee deep in the frigid river water, watching as they moved quickly
across, waiting for the signal from Ike that they were clear of the exit. When his piercing whistle drifted across the
water, she turned to Emily Metcalfe and nodded. Emily waved to her father, seated, for a
change, on the wagon’s seat, and he started their mules off.

It took about 20 minutes for
each wagon to safely ford the rapidly rushing, three foot deep waters of the
river. A couple hours later, the
O’Callahans were ready to go. At Lou’s
signal, Shaun O’Callahan, the eldest son, urged their oxen into motion. The rest of the family was going to wade
across. Bryan, the patriarch, was
helping his wife Kathleen across, with the others strung out behind him.

Suddenly, Kathleen slipped and
started to fall. Bryan tried to catch
her but got caught in her skirts and went down too. Shaun, seeing what was happening, started to
slow their oxen in an effort to help.

“Don’t you dare slow down,
Shaun O’Callahan,” Lou shouted at the top of her lungs, snapping her own
bullwhip expertly across the backs of the lumbering oxen to keep them moving.

Ignoring the distressed shouts
of the other O’Callahan boys and the screams of fear from the shore, Lou waved
to Jeremiah to send Katy out to her.
Grabbing onto the saddle horn, she swung herself up onto the mare’s back
one armed, already reaching with her other hand for the lariat hanging from the
saddle.

She didn’t need to look to know
Ike was doing his job of making sure Shaun got all the way across and safely
out of the water, before joining her and Henderson in the rescue effort. Urging Katy into motion, Lou galloped
downriver toward the rapidly disappearing bodies of the O’Callahans. Once in sight of them, she raised the lariat
over her head and began twirling it for all she was worth. Sighting her target, Kathleen, she let the
rope fly, settling it over the woman’s upper torso, clamping her arms to her
side, and, with a slight push of her heels urged Katy to begin backing up to
pull the rope tight.

“Hold on,” she ordered. Even as she began to drag the bedraggled,
half drowned woman to shore, the wagon master went flying past her on his horse
after the other victim. Heading for the
far side of the river, Lou could feel the rope pulling tight as Kathleen
continued to struggle and scream. “Stop
fighting it,” she yelled to her. “I’ll
have you out of there in a minute.”

Once on shore, Lou leaped off
Katy’s back and ran to free Kathleen from the rope. Still not really aware of her improved
situation, Kathleen’s arms went flying with extreme force, hitting Lou in the
face and sending her soaring backwards into the frigid waters.

Lou gasped in shock as the ice
cold liquid closed in over her head.
Fighting her way to the surface, she found the current had already
carried her several feet further downriver.
And no one knew where she was.
Struggling to force her lungs, partially paralyzed by her sudden
immersion, to inhale oxygen, Lou fought to keep her head above water. Finally, she was able to get her legs back
underneath her and begin to make slow progress, half walking, half swimming,
toward the river’s edge. When she
crawled out of the water, she collapsed on the river bank, gasping for breath
and shivering.

That’s how Ike found her when
he rode up on Lightning. Leaping off the
horse, he slid to his knees next to her, clasping her to his chest and rubbing
her arms briskly to warm her.

“I’m alright,” she gasped. “I’m alright.”

**********

Lou sat staring into the
leaping, dancing flames of their fire, going over and over those frantic few
minutes in the river. Though she’d never
once stopped fighting, there had been a second, or two, where she’d thought she
might not make it out of the water.

Ike, seeing her shiver, moved
closer to her, in a silent offer of comfort and warmth. Lou smiled at him gratefully.

“You know,” she said, “I’ve
never been so glad of those swimming lessons Emma forced on us after Jimmy
almost drowned as I am today.”

*Wish I could’ve seen Jimmy’s
face after he realized Emma’d rescued him!*

Lou laughed. “Yep.
That sure would’ve been worth the trip to Fort Reunion all by itself!”

Sobering, she realized she’d
just spoken of Jimmy without thinking, without pain, without tears, for the
first time in months. Turning, she
looked at Ike in surprise. He nodded and
smiled at her, reaching out to cover her hand.
Turning hers palm up, she slid her fingers between his in response.

“Please, kin ye come look at me
wife? She’s doin’ poorly,” Brian
O’Callahan said timidly, standing at the edge of the circle of light cast by
their fire.

“What’s wrong?” Lou asked,
concerned.

“I dunno, she’s after throwing
up her entire innards, and I’m thinkin’ there’s summat else what she isna
tellin’ me,” he said, fiddling nervously with the brim of his hat.

“We’ll be right there,” Lou
smiled at him. Ike was the closest thing
they had to a doctor on the train.
Although she was pretty sure she knew what was going on.

Moments later, they ducked into
the tent the O’Callahan boys had set up for their parents that night.

The woman, pale and sweaty,
moaned as she rolled over to wretch into a bucket. After several moments, she fell back onto her
cot with a thud. Lou knelt beside her to
pick up a rag and wipe her face off.
That’s when Kathleen noticed Ike standing there.

Lou looked at her, a frown
creasing her brow, before turning back to Ike.
“Why don’t you go see if you can calm down her husband,” she
suggested. “While I try to figure out
what’s going on?”

Ike nodded and ducked back out
of the tent.

“There,” Lou said quietly,
dipping the rag in clean water and once again wiping it across the distressed
woman’s brow. “Now, you want to tell me
where it hurts?”

“I’m after losin’ me babe,” she
mumbled. “T’ain’t the first time, so’s I
know what’s happenin’. Ain’t nothin’ the
menfolk can do ‘bout it.”

“Alright,” Lou said,
sighing. “Let’s see what we can do to
make you comfortable.”

**********

“I didn’t even know she was
expecting,” Lou said the next morning over breakfast. “And there I am helping her through losing
the babe.” She shivered. “That could have been me.”

*But it wasn’t,* Ike reassured
her.

“Not this time.” She paused, then looking up at Ike, she said,
“I think it’s time.”

*Time?*

“Time for me to back off a bit,
stop working, take it a little easier.”

*Good,* Ike smiled at her. *I was beginning to worry a bit too much
about you.*

“Alright, Kid!” she laughed,
pushing at Ike with her elbow. Ike
smiled, glad she could tease him like this about her lost love. He wondered if she even realized what she’d
done. “Thing is,” she continued more
soberly, “I ain’t sure I want to keep going.”

*What do you mean?*

“I like it here. This is pretty country. Good soil.
Lots of game.” Turning to Ike she
said, “We could have us a real nice place right around here, somewheres. We don’t have to go all the way to Oregon.”

Ike felt a large grin begin to
blossom across his face. He liked the
sound of the way she’d unconsciously used the term ‘we’. Nodding, he said, *I’ll start looking around
while scouting.*

*The name Burnt Ranch didn’t
come into usage until the late 1860s, after the Sioux had burned down the
facilities, twice. Before that it was
referred to simply as The Last Crossing or The Upper Sweetwater Crossing. I used Burnt Ranch for recognition’s
sake.

The Author

Who am I? A Hispanic broadcast journalist, current host of Kansas Week on KPTS, and certified high school teacher, a writer and lifelong lover of all things historical, particularly the Old West. I'm married to a wonderful man from Germany and we have a 17 yr old son. We have two rescued cats and a rescued pooch, who thinks she's a 70 lb lapdog. I'm prone to talk about anything and everything that catches my interest.